ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : One Lulu of a ‘Breakdown’

In the annals of government these days, it’s not unusual to find officials either ducking responsibility--or the tab that goes with it.

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department says it was merely “a breakdown in the system” that a suspect, wanted for armed robbery and a host of charges, hobbled out of a Mission Viejo hospital on Nov. 13, leaving behind an unpaid $37,964.49 hospital bill.

Meanwhile, an Orange County dentist, on his way to a Boy Scout camp, was left behind, still hospitalized with serious injuries, after allegedly being hit by the suspect, Anthony Garcia, in a head-on car accident as he fled Riverside County.

Garcia, too, was hospitalized, but skipped out of Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center Nov. 13 to a waiting automobile, despite repeated requests by doctors for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department to arrest him.

The Sheriff’s Department had been unwilling to arrest Garcia until he was discharged by the hospital because it was concerned about assuming responsibility for his medical bills.

But doctors had expressed serious concerns about keeping him on; he was said to be making people nervous while stalking the corridors on crutches.

That should have been a warning for the authorities to move in, but they missed their chance to make the arrest. Some “breakdown in the system” this botched case proved to be. It’s true that shrinking law-enforcement budgets put enormous pressure on police to cut corners to save money. For instance, says Dr. Kenneth Waxman, trauma chief at UCI Medical Center, law-enforcement officers routinely present a problem for hospitals when they drop off drunk-driving patients without issuing them citations.

That’s one problem, but cases such as Mission Viejo’s, where a hospital is doubling as a holding tank for a patient wanted on serious charges, is something else. Doctors cannot carry out their medical duties while putting patients, staff and bottom lines at risk. Is this any way to run a hospital? Is this any way to run law enforcement? No way.